Maharashtra doubles Mumbai airport schedule domestic flight capacity to 100

Jun 15,2020

Maharashtra doubles Mumbai airport schedule domestic flight capacity to 100

NEW DELHI: Mumbai airport was on Monday allowed to double its domestic flights capacity, exactly three weeks after schedule services within the country had resumed. Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport (CSMIA) will now handle 50 schedule domestic arrivals and as many domestic departures-up from 25 schedule arrivals and as many departures allowed from May 25 to June 14.
Sources say this number will be scaled up to 100 schedule domestic arrivals and as many departures before the end of this month.

A CSMIA spokesperson said, "starting Tuesday (June 16) the airport will cater to 100 domestic commercial passenger flight movements which includes 50 departures and 50 arrivals. The move will also see an increase in the sectors that we are currently handling. We are glad about the new progress that has come in favour of CSMIA, and we continue to relentlessly work towards ensuring the safety of our passengers and smooth functioning at the airport."
Day one of schedule flight resumption on May 25 saw 58,318 domestic passengers on 832 flights (70 passengers per flight on an average), a number which was 71,924 passengers on 715 flights on June 13 (average of 100 passengers per flight), according to tweets of aviation minister HS Puri.

"June so far has been slightly better than last week of May in terms of aircraft occupancy rising from 50-52% to 60% at present. Chennai is also likely to double its allowed schedule domestic flight capacity. Airlines will add flights. Hopefully corona spread will be under control and the increased number of flights will see a rising aircraft occupancy," said a senior airline official.
Given frail financial health, airlines will have to cut back flights if the increased numbers see planes going less than half full due to corona situation worsening and different states continuing with their different quarantine rules.
CSMIA used to handle almost 1,000 flights a day in pre-covid times. On May 24, the evening before schedule domestic flights were to resume some states like West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Maharashtra capped the number of arrivals and departures their main airports, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore and Mumbai, respectively. That had sent airlines back to drawing board to cancel flights.

"More than 10 lakh people have now flown on more than 11,500 flights since domestic operations recommenced on May 25, 2020," Puri tweeted on June 13.
While domestic flights were supposed to resume at one
third level, unlock 1.0 has seen that cap go. Now airlines can add flights as per the originally approved summer schedule based on actual demand.